Tastes as yummy as it looks (unless you don’t think it looks very good, then it tastes FAR better than it looks)

Weight gain, the bane of my life, and my poor wife is the one who suffers either way, either she finds herself married to a fatty or has to endure a salad only diet (we eat what we want when we go out, and eat only salads at home). I sometimes try and alleviate with the effort required to think up fresh and exciting salads (usually unnecessarily) by pitching in with a recipe here and there. This one here was a particular success. There’s nothing in it that’s surprising or new, it’s just a damn good Thai salad. The chicken alone is very tasty and can be served as a main along with a side separately if you want, all in all though, this is a rather tasty salad.

We generally finsih the salad alone, but realize that it’s probably owing to the fact that it’s only salads we eat, so the quantities should suffice a 4 person serving easily.

For the chicken

2 large or 3 medium chicken breasts

Marinate in:

1 lemon grass stalk, roughly chopped

3 lime leaves

1 tbsp of honey

2 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp rice vinegar

1/2 chopped red chili

1/2 tsp fish sauce

1 thinly sliced large garlic clove

1/2 tsp sesame seed oil

leave the chicken in the marinate overnight, and then in a large pan heat some olive oil over a medium high heat. Once hot, lay the breasts and cook on a medium heat for about 6 minutes on either side, until the outside is nice and browned and a fork can go through the breast with little resistance. Remove the chicken from the pan, discard any bits of lime leaves or lemongrass that may be stuck to the chicken. Slice the chicken into thin 1cm wide strips and keep ready to add to the salad.

For the dressing:

The dressing is a slight variant of the marinate

1 thumb sized portion of fresh ginger, peeled and grated

2 medium garlic cloves peeled and grated

1 tsp sesame oil

3 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tsp brown sugar

2 tsp honey

3 tsp soy sauce

3 tsp oyster sauce

1/2 tsp fish sauce

Juice of 1 lemon

Finish the rest with olive or vegetable oil to make at least 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup. Dressing making rarely is an exact sience, it’s just important to remember in Thai cuisine the balance between sweet, savory and salty, so taste the dressing as you go and adjust as required (you’ll find that you only need to adjust vinegar, soy, oil or lemon, everything else should be ok)

For the salad:

Half a red cabbage (about 3oog) cut into strips

4 to 5 large leaves of romaine lettuce cut into similar strips

handful of coriander chopped finely

2 small cucumbers chopped

1/3 cup of unsalted peanuts

1 red chili chopped

1 spring onion chopped

Just combine everything in a bowl, toss together and dig in, should be a pretty fantastic dish. Hope you enjoy!